It’s Time To Take A Break From ChatGPT (and its variants).
How innocent searches on the AI model have negative effects on emissions, the environment, and us.
ChatGPT is increasingly the new Google. CNBC reports that 46% of teachers and 48% of students say they use ChatGPT at least once a week. It’s a lifesaver for procrastinating students with an assignment due the next day, as the AI tool can uniquely converse with users and write or edit essays. It can be difficult to find straight answers on Google when researching niche topics, whereas ChatGPT spoon-feeds us the answers. Naturally, the use of ChatGPT is despised by academics (the same people who probably would have opposed the creation of the internet). I remember when ChatGPT was launched almost 2 years ago; I was in biology class and my teacher spent the first half of the lesson panicking that the end was near.
But in defence of my old biology teacher and others like him, ChatGPT is a danger to our civilization in other ways that were not immediately obvious. We have all heard critiques of the infallibility of AI or the dangers of graduate students' over-reliance on the language tool; however, what misses the headlines is the extraordinarily high electricity consumption used to run ChatGPT and its possible effects on our environment. With 180.5 million…
